Antenna Engineering–EE422

Arrays 2

Sanghoek Kim
Kyung Hee University

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 1

Array of point sources

a1 ejα1 a2 ejα2 a3 ejα3 ... aN ejαN

• Parameters
– Number of elements, N
– Element spacing, d
– Element amplitudes, an ’s
– Element phases, αn ’s

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 2

Number of elements, N

a1 ejα1 a2 ejα2 a3 ejα3 ... aN ejαN

• Element spacing d = λ/2

• Equal element amplitudes and phases
– a1 = a2 = ... = aN
– α1 = α2 = ... = αN
• Directivity is increased by N times
• In dB, D = D0 + 10 log N
• Use in gain enhancement

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 3

Number of elements, N

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 4

Element spacing, d

a1 ejα1 a2 ejα2 a3 ejα3 ... aN ejαN

• Equal element amplitudes and phases

– a1 = a2 = ... = aN
– α1 = α2 = ... = αN
• When d < λ/2
– Beamwidth increases with decreasing element spacing
• When d > λ/2
– Grating lobes may occur
– Beamwidth of the major lobe decreases with increasing
element spacing

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 5

Visible region
 
 sin( N ψ) 
2
|AF (θ)| =   , where ψ = βd cos θ + α
 
 sin( 21 ψ) 

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 6

Element spacing, d
d=λ/8 d=λ/4

d=λ/2 d=λ

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Element amplitudes, an ’s

a1 ejα1 a2 ejα2 a3 ejα3 ... aN ejαN

• Element spacing, d = λ/2

• Equal element phases, α1 = α2 = ... = αN .
• Varying an ’s changes
– Side-lobe level
– Beamwidth

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 8

Element amplitudes, an ’s

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 9

Binomial expansion

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 10

Element amplitudes, an ’s

• As the current amplitude is

tapered more toward the
edges of the array, the side
lobes tend to decrease and
the beamwidth increases.
• Trade-off between the side
lobe and the beamwidth.
• Dolph-Chebyshev array
provides a pattern with all
side lobes of the same level.

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Dolph-Chebyshev array

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 12

Dolph-Chebyshev array
Example: when N = 10,
a1 = 1, a2 = 1.357, a3 = 1.974, a4 = 2.486, a5 = 2.798, a6 =
2.798, a7 = 2.486, a8 = 1.357, a9 = 1

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 13

Element phases, αn ’s

a1 ejα1 a2 ejα2 a3 ejα3 ... aN ejαN

• Element spacing, d = λ/2

• Equal element amplitudes, a1 = a2 = ... = aN .
• Varying αn ’s changes
– Direction of the major lobe
– Direction of nulls and their steepness
– Side-lobe level

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 14

Element phases, αn ’s
θ=0º θ=45º

θ=90º θ=135º

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 15

Base station antenna design in mobile communications

• Beam tilt and upper sidelobe suppression

– Adjust both elements amplitude and phases

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 16

Mutual coupling

• For a single isolated element, Z1 = VI 1 = Z11 .

1
• For multile elements in an array, things chage due to mutual
coupling.

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Mutual coupling

System can be treated as an N port impedance network.

V1 = Z11 I1 + Z12 I2 + ... + Z1N IN

V2 = Z21 I1 + Z22 I2 + ... + ZN N IN
.
.
VN = ZN 1 I1 + ZN 2 I2 + ... + ZN N IN

S. Kim Antenna Engineering–EE422 18

Mutual coupling

• For a single isolated element, Z1 = VI 1 = Z11 .

1

• The input impedance of the mth element in the presence of

all elements (a.k.a. active impedance),

Vm I1 I2 IN
Zm = = Zm1 + Zm2 + ...ZmN
Im Im Im Im
• Mutual coupling makes the current control non-trivial.

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Mutual coupling between parallel dipoles

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Mutual coupling between collinear dipoles

• The coupling reduces as spacing increases as 1/d2 .

• The far-field pattern predicts the coupling strength.

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Mutual coupling affects the pattern

• The coupling not only affects impedance, but also radiation

pattern.
• F (θ, φ) = ΣN n
n=1 gae (θ, φ)In e
jα

n (θ, φ) is called active element pattern, obtained by exciting

• gae
only the nth element with all other elements loaded.

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An array exploiting the coupling
• Yagi-Uda antenna

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Directivity of Yagi-Uda antenna
• D effectively increases with small N .
• Diminishing returns beyond a certain N .

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Current on Yagi-Uda antenna

• Not uniformly excited.

• The addition of more elements results in a fractional dB
increase in gain and is usually not done.

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